May 06, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1429

KABUL, May 5: Four children and three policemen were killed in accidental explosions in the Afghan capital on Monday while elsewhere militants’ gunfire struck a helicopter forcing it to land, officials and a witness said.

A US Marine and British military operation under way to drive out Taliban militants in the southernmost Garmser district meanwhile suffered its first casualties when two soldiers were wounded in an attack, the Nato force said.

The children were killed when an old weapon exploded as they were playing with it, the interior ministry said.

It said three were killed; a fourth died in hospital, an uncle of the child said.

A police officer at the site said the children were under 12 years old. Elsewhere in the city, three policemen were killed when a rocket-propelled grenade was accidentally dropped and blew up as they were preparing to travel to an outlying area to eradicate opium poppy fields, the ministry said.

“As a result three police officers were martyred and several others injured,” it said in a statement. An official said earlier 20 policemen were wounded.

Afghanistan is littered with ammunition and unexploded bombs after decades of war, which continue as Afghan security forces and their international allies battle an fundamentalist insurgency.

The violence is the worst in the south where US Marines and British troops have for nearly a week been carrying out an operation in Garmser district, a route for fresh Taliban fighters and weapons from across the Pakistan border.

Two of the soldiers involved in the International Security Assistance Force offensive were wounded Monday when they were attacked with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, ISAF spokesman Major Martin O’Donnell said.

The Nato-led force announced meanwhile it had killed two militants and captured four on Saturday while clearing a bomb-making factory in the southern province of Uruzgan.

It also said a civilian helicopter was hit by insurgent gunfire in mountainous eastern province of Kunar, which borders Pakistan, and forced to make an emergency landing at an ISAF base although no one was hurt.

“The helicopter made a landing at an ISAF base, in central Kunar, after taking machine gunfire from an unknown number of insurgents,” ISAF said in a statement.

“The aircrew inspected the aircraft and found one bullet hole that did minor damage to the helicopter.”

Militants have shot at several military helicopters, most often missing, but a rocket-propelled grenade brought down a Chinook in Kunar in June 2005, killing 16 US soldiers.—AFP